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April 2023

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Cash App Founder Bob Lee Stabbed to Death in San Francisco After Moving to Miami to Evade Crime Wave By Rick Moran

By on April 7th, 2023

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/04/06/cash-app-founder-bob-lee-stabbed-to-death-in-san-francisco-after-moving-to-miami-to-evade-crime-wave-n1685088

Lee had left the region six months ago and had moved to Miami, but was back in the city on business. He extended his trip by one day, and was murdered.

The Founder of the mobile payment company Cash App was stabbed to death on a deserted street in San Francisco early Wednesday morning. Bob Lee was a well-known member of the Bay Area technology community, and his violent death outside some luxury apartments near the Bay Bridge underscores the decline in living conditions in the city.

Lee’s gruesome death was partially captured on surveillance video, as reported by the San Francisco Standard.

Surveillance footage reviewed by The Standard shows Lee, who had already been stabbed, walking up Main Street away from the Bay Bridge at around 2:30 a.m. Lee crosses the intersection at Harrison Street and walks up to a parked white Camry with its hazard lights flashing.

Lee then lifts his shirt—as if to show the driver his wound and ask for help—and falls to the ground after the car drives away, the footage shows. He gets up and walks back toward the Bay Bridge before falling to the ground again outside an apartment building called the Portside.

At some point, Lee dialed 911 and repeatedly screamed for help, saying he needed to go to the hospital, according to the records reviewed by The Standard. Lee made the call at 2:34 a.m. and police arrived on the scene less than six minutes later.

City leaders and the media are rushing to defend San Francisco as being a peaceful, safe city.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

Noa Tishby’s deserved dismissal By Ruthie Blum

By on April 7th, 2023

https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-738636

In a tweet on Sunday, actress/producer Noa Tishby bemoaned the termination of her unpaid position as Israel’s Special Envoy for Combating Antisemitism and the Delegitimization of Israel. Author of the 2021 book Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth, she was appointed last April by then-foreign minister Yair Lapid to the heretofore nonexistent role.

The selection of the US-based native Israeli for the mission initially raised a few eyebrows, including my own. Like other skeptics, I assumed that she was chosen more for her drop-dead gorgeous looks than any gravitas she might possess, based on the tired idea that what the Jewish state needs in the battle against global vilification, is better branding.

Whether this was Lapid’s thinking when he hired Tishby is unclear, but she quickly rendered the question moot. Within weeks, I was singing her praises in print, insisting that she deserved “not only an apology, but accolades, from those who doubted her abilities.”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

Kudos to Cornell and Stanford for finally standing up for free speech By Rikki Schlott

By on April 7th, 2023

https://nypost.com/2023/04/06/cornell-stanford-stand-up-to-woke-mobs-for-free-speech/

On March 31, I reported that Cornell’s student assembly unanimously voted to require trigger warnings for “traumatic” classroom lessons.

The resolution would have required the university’s professors to warn students about materials or lectures with topics “including but not limited to” sexual assault, domestic violence, self-harm, suicide, child abuse, racial hate crimes, transphobic violence, homophobic harassment and xenophobia.

While trigger warnings might be well-intentioned attempts to protect sensitive students, many researchers are finding they aren’t all that effective.

They also run the risk of chilling speech and causing professors — who can’t possibly anticipate what might trigger each student — to self-censor.

As I asked, “Is the implication that college students are too weak and feeble to hear the truth?”

But there’s some good news.

On Monday, Cornell president Martha Pollack and provost Michael Kotlikoff responded to the student assembly with a resounding “No!”

In an email to the student assembly, the pair said the trigger warning policy “violates our faculty’s fundamental right to determine what and how to teach” and could even tarnish the “academic distinction of a Cornell degree.”

They affirmed the policy “would unacceptably limit our students’ ability to speak, questio, and explore, lest a classroom conversation veer into an area determined ‘off-limits.’”

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EDUCATION Comments turned off

DEI Meets East Germany: U.S. Universities Urge Students to Report One Another for ‘Bias’ Snitches get sheepskins as colleges train student informants. By Iván Marinovic and John Ellis

By on April 7th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/snitches-get-sheepskins-as-colleges-train-student-informants-dei-east-germany-bias-protected-class-f941ee11?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

Anonymous informers have always been a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Friends, neighbors and even family members are encouraged to inform on those who speak against the regime. This is effective social control: Nowhere is safe to discuss politics, and everyday life is subdued. To this day, when Cubans want to discuss something sensitive, they go into their bathrooms, let the water flow and whisper.

Who would want to live under such conditions? Apparently, America’s colleges and universities do. They have been setting up their own systems of anonymous informers.

According to a recent study by the free-speech watchdog organization Speech First, 56% of American universities have adopted schemes that encourage students to report on one another anonymously for “bias” or “protected identity harm.” This means that anyone who falls short of campus orthodoxy on “pronouns,” transgenderism, microaggressions and proscribed language might soon be denounced and deprived of basic due process, including the right to face an accuser. Zealots at Stanford recently denounced a fellow student who was photographed holding a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.”

The number of universities that have institutionalized snitching has doubled since 2017. The damage this will do to campus life is easy to imagine: It will chill free expression via self-censorship both in and out of the classroom; it will infantilize protected classes of students even more than they already have been; it will reinforce the campus culture of victimhood; it will further strengthen the radical orthodoxy; and it will divert yet more energy from learning to ideological activism.

Anonymous reporting has a self-selection component: Decent people won’t do it because they consider it morally repugnant. A system that rewards spying on friends and neighbors will disproportionately attract cowardly people motivated by the worst of human nature—resentment, jealousy, grudges and dogmatic intolerance. The snitches will be people who don’t understand the damage Stasi-like behavior will do to our universities.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Department Of Defense official testifies that the military must be a ‘safe space’ for the non-binary By Eric Utter

By on April 6th, 2023

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/department_of_defense_official_testifies_that_the_military_must_be_a_safe_space_for_the_nonbinary.html

When a rainbow-colored Navy training video on the proper use of preferred pronouns surfaced last year, many people thought it was a joke. Sadly, many people were wrong.

Recently, a top Department of Defense official offered testimony to Congress that doubled down on the video’s underlying message: the armed services must be a “safe space” in which each and every member feels validated and affirmed on his and/or her journey of self-discovery. Remarkably, the video discussed how to make the Navy a “safe space” for people who wish to explore their gender identity.

People traditionally joined the Navy to explore the world and burnish their character, not to explore their gender identity and sexual preferences. This puts a new twist on basic training. “Am I a boy or a girl?” is really basic. Or perhaps neither or both…or something else entirely would be a better fit. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead with my own personal gender journey!

This has to be good for unit cohesion and operational readiness, particularly when hundreds or thousands of sailors are confined to a single boat, right?

The DOD’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer (CDIO) reportedly told the House Armed Services Committee that the “concerns young Americans have about safety are negatively impacting [military] recruiting.”  The CDIO further claimed that potential recruits do not “feel safe reporting to work for fear of discrimination.”  

Our military now needs to be “a safe space” or no one will join it? This seems oxymoronic and counter-intuitive at best, and potentially cataclysmic at worst.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Our French Revolution America now has three potential futures and two are bad. By Victor Davis Hanson

By on April 6th, 2023

https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/05/our-french-revolution/

We are in a Jacobin Revolution of the sort that in 1793-94 nearly destroyed France. And things are getting scary. 

The Democratic Party vanished sometime in 2020. 

It was absorbed by hard-left ideologues. They were bent on radically altering, or hijacking, existing institutions to force radical, equality-of-result agendas that otherwise do not earn majority support. 

The American people want affordable power and fuel and energy autonomy. They do not want a Green New Deal that results in dependence on the Middle East. 

They want fiscal sobriety, not a permanent stagflationary economy marked by bank failures, soaring interest rates, crony capitalism, and subsidies for those who choose not to work. 

They know no country can exist without a border, much less while offering blank checks to foreign cartels that kill 100,000 Americans yearly. 

They demand realist deterrence abroad, not the current woke military whose erosion is spelling the end American credibility and global stability. 

Racialists are eerily embracing discredited Neo-Confederate notions of racial chauvinism, discrimination, segregation, and the old-one-drop rule of racial obsession. They are turning America toward a Balkanized war-of-all-against-all. 

To implement such an unpopular program, the new Left must radically alter our institutions. 

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Chicago Chooses Crime Brandon Johnson’s victory means that Mayor Lori Lightfoot will be replaced by someone far worse. by Daniel Greenfield

By on April 6th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/chicago-chooses-crime/

Brandon Johnson’s “victory” means that Mayor Lori Lightfoot will be replaced by someone far worse. Lightfoot at least made occasional efforts to fight crime, Johnson’s message is that criminals are the victims.

That is the trend in a party and a political system that goes to extremes.

Johnson’s victory comes as little surprise despite polls that showed Paul Vallas was leading. Like Rick Caruson in Los Angeles, Vallas picked up endorsements from Democrats, including surprising ones, ran as a moderate and seemed poised to win over a city that was tired of the madness. And, like the LA mayoral race it didn’t matter. Johnson and Bass had the same two assets, racial bloc voting and a political machine capable of delivering votes, especially once it understood how many votes were needed to get its candidate over the top.

I’m not even counting the media.

Chicago loves crime, but this isn’t the Capone kind of vote, it’s the solidarity between the Left and the thugs running the streets. The old Chicago machine alternated between tolerating crime and cracking down on it. It cut dirty deals with bosses and busted hoods. The new machine loves street level criminals. And they love it.

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

No Worse Friend: The West’s Treatment of Israel Meanwhile the enemies who have sworn to wipe Israel off the map are courted and indulged. by Bruce Thornton

By on April 6th, 2023

https://www.frontpagemag.com/no-worse-friend-the-wests-treatment-of-israel/

The Romans said of 1st century B.C. general Sulla that there was no better friend, and no worse enemy. Epitomized in this saying is the ancient ideas of what comprises the just treatment of the gods and other people, expressed by the phrase do ut des, “I give so that you give.” “Friends” are those, humans or gods, from whom you have received, and to whom you owe benefits. “Enemies” are those who seek to injure you, and whom you may justly injure in return. In antiquity this principle of reciprocity defined all relationships.

And it applied to foreign policy. What we would call national interests were served by being predictable and reliable. If you were named a “Friend of Rome,” you could rely on Rome’s backing you against your enemies––as long as you reciprocated by paying taxes, obeying the laws, and providing auxiliaries for the Roman legions. Betray the principle of reciprocity, and you could depend on Rome to ruthlessly punish you, for as Homer shows in the Iliad, there is no greater injury than betrayal by a “friend” whom you have benefited, and from whom you are owed benefits in turn.

We moderns, of course, find such an ethic primitive, if not savage. Our notions of interstate relations are steeped in idealism, particularly “moralizing internationalism,” as British historian Correlli Barnett called the post-Versailles foreign policy of democracy promotion, and the non-lethal adjudication of conflict through diplomacy, foreign aid, and multinational institutions.

Yet as the sorry history of those efforts over the last century shows, the old realist mentality reflects more accurately the truth of human nature, and the inevitable clashes of passions and interests arising in a world of diverse peoples with equally diverse beliefs and aims.

A good case study of this truth is found in the West’s treatment of Israel, especially by globalist progressives. The Biden administration has been typical. For all its specious complaints about Russian interference in our politics, it recently injected itself into Israel’s current debate over judicial reform, which for the present has been put on hold.

According to the Times of Israel, when asked about the reforms, “The president responded that he hoped [Prime Minister] Netanyahu would ‘walk away’ from his current judicial overhaul legislation, and that he was ‘very concerned’ about the health of Israeli democracy. ‘They cannot continue down this road. And I’ve sort of made that clear,’ Biden said. ‘Hopefully the prime minister will act… to work out some genuine compromise, but that remains to be seen.’” Biden also pointedly rejected inviting Netanyahu to the White House.

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HOMELAND SECURITY, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

China’s Race to Dominate the Military and Emerging Technologies by Lawrence A. Franklin

By on April 6th, 2023

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19563/china-emerging-technologies

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly says it wants to establish dominance in emerging critical technologies as part of its strategy to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, establish a new world order and replace the US-led international system established after WWII.

The US has only a little time left in this race. Reports indicate that deep cuts to the military made by several administrations have severely impaired its ability to catch up. Remaining talent and resources will possibly be reallocated in a new administration, if it is not too late by then. China has been supercharging its military for years while the U.S. has sat back, watched, and argued about unrelated social issues.

Communist China is currently preparing its people for war. America is not. The American people, who take their magical lives — when compared to so many people in the world — for granted, may be in for a tormenting shock.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) openly says it wants to establish dominance in emerging critical technologies as part of its strategy to supplant the United States as the world’s dominant power, establish a new world order and replace the US-led international system established after WWII.

The US has only a little time left in this race. Reports indicate that deep cuts to the military made by several administrations have severely impaired its ability to catch up. Remaining talent and resources will possibly be reallocated in a new administration, if it is not too late by then. China has been supercharging its military for years while the U.S. has sat back, watched, and argued about unrelated social issues.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Trump Indictment Accelerates America’s Race to the Bottom From the IRS scandal to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, partisans on both sides tear down national norms. By Mark Penn and Andrew Stein

By on April 6th, 2023

https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-indictment-accelerates-americas-race-to-the-bottom-alvin-bragg-new-york-polarization-clinton-edc1d2b2?mod=opinion_lead_pos6
Mr. Penn was a pollster and adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, 1995-2008. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and CEO of Stagwell Inc. Mr. Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-94.

The demonization of political opponents is entering its next depressing but predictable phase—the use of the most partisan parts of the criminal-justice system to arrest and prosecute political opponents on flimsy charges. Too much of the public, increasingly divorced from bedrock national values, is cheering it on.

It’s the logical extension of Donald Trump’s claiming he won the election he lost; of Joe Biden’s branding “MAGA Republicans” a “clear and present danger” to “our democracy”; of right-wing groups planning and executing an assault on the Capitol; of the Russia-collusion hoax; of partisan impeachments; of tech companies censoring political and scientific information to promote ideological and partisan agendas; of retired intelligence officials interfering with the 2020 election by making false claims about the Hunter Biden laptop; of law students shouting down federal judges with the encouragement of university administrators.

The routine violation of political norms worsened under the Trump and Biden administrations but began under President Obama. He personally upbraided the Supreme Court in his 2010 State of the Union address, falsely characterizing its holdings in the Citizens United case. His administration weaponized the Internal Revenue Service against grass-roots conservative groups and initiated the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s interference in the 2016 election.

Most voters in last month’s Harvard CAPS/Harris poll endorsed indicting Mr. Trump—51% of all respondents and 80% of Democrats. When asked if such an indictment would be politically motivated, 59% said yes. When asked if any payments to Stormy Daniels were campaign or personal expenses, 67% said they were personal—the opposite of the theory in the New York indictment. Most expect Mr. Trump to be acquitted, which means some respondents’ answers violate the basic principle that prosecutors shouldn’t bring charges that they can’t prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

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